Song about a ghost

ROBOTQUALITYREC

New member
Some of my first memories are of my mom taking me to old cemetarys before i was even in kindergarten.
One in particular is at the end of a very long country road here in pittsfield MA. its very small, mostly from the mid to late 1800's. I remember there was one girl named Almira Dewey, my mom always read me her tombstone when we went there. it said she got stuck under a waterwheel. I always remembered that. Around the same time she told me you had to hold your breath when you drove by a graveyard or else the dead people could get inside your body. So i went back and sat by her stone last summer and kinda fell in love with her. She was 23 like me. at the bottom of the stone it says "we all do fade as a leaf".

I write alot of songs
some are ok
some i like
this one i like:

You're fleeting like the sunset,
a moment that fades
like the shortest day of winter.
You belong to the darkness,
a prison of velvet and stars.
I've only held you with my eyes
on moonless nights in July.
Your figure against the sky is so divine.

So ill breathe deep
every time i drive by your home.
The river is just too deep
to let you drown in it all alone.
I'll keep you safe
deep inside of my empty heart.
There's room for two
and im saving it just for you.

There's a constant reminder
Tattooed in the back of my mind.
Your eyes are black as a cinder.
Your skin is white as the snow.
I know its pointless as praying,
but i just cant stop
dreaming about you.
And one fine day, it may come true.

So ill breathe deep
every time i drive by your home.
The river is just too deep
to let you drown in it all alone.
I'll keep you safe
deep inside of my empty heart.
There's room for two
and im saving it just for you.

ill post an mp3 if i ever figure out how.
 
If you did not explain what the song was about before I read it, I would have absolutely no clue what it was about.
The way I figure it, if you have to explain a tune...the writer has not done his job correctly...the song should tell the story...
What your tune lacks is a hook and a place in time and space,
or you can try being descriptive of the event and subject....



Pittsfield eh?

Another Baystater....
welcome to the boards man,
Joe
 
ROBOTQUALITYREC said:
:

You're fleeting like the sunset,
a moment that fades
like the shortest day of winter.
You belong to the darkness,
a prison of velvet and stars.
I've only held you with my eyes
on moonless nights in July.
Your figure against the sky is so divine.

Some nice imagery is evoked here, but I don't get the rhyming scheme.


So ill breathe deep
every time i drive by your home.
The river is just too deep
to let you drown in it all alone.
I'll keep you safe
deep inside of my empty heart.
There's room for two
and im saving it just for you.

Again the rhyming thing.
Why are you breathing deep? how about "So I hold my breath.."
"and i'm saving it just for you" probably should be "saved". If this is about a dead girl, you have already saved the room inside your heart. It has a better impact I think.


There's a constant reminder
Tattooed in the back of my mind.
Your eyes are black as a cinder.
Your skin is white as the snow.
I know its pointless as praying,
but i just cant stop
dreaming about you.
And one fine day, it may come true.


Hope about "Your skin is snowy white" it hangs closer to a rhyme with mind.

So ill breathe deep
every time i drive by your home.
The river is just too deep
to let you drown in it all alone.
I'll keep you safe
deep inside of my empty heart.
There's room for two
and im saving it just for you.



Overall I don't know what the rhyming scheme is and, as joro implied, what is it that you are singing about. I loke the imagery and the mood that you are trying to convey, but you need to explain: Who this is? Maybe you can insert a verse about how her headstone speaks to you? Allude to a corpse or a headstone or a cemetary or something that tells us who this is?

You are on the right track, but now is when the rewriting process kicks in.

Good Luck and keep writing.
 
joro and rguagenti summed up my thoughts exactly. I enjoyed your setup immensly - it was a great story. Make that your song and you're there. Talk about how you fell in love with her having only met her through her gravestone, and now she haunts your dreams. Or you don't necessarily have to tell the story from your point of view as you told it to us. Instead, explore telling it from the point of view of her lover when she drowned. Or maybe her lover's point of view a year later, being haunted by her in his dreams.

Your best line was easily:

The river is too deep
To let you drown in it alone.


THis is a great idea that just needs to be expored a little.

got mojo?
www.voodoovibe.com
 
hey guys thanks for writing.
i dont really like to be a rhyming nazi.
i think that sucks.
it sounds hokey when every line is a rhyme.
or every other.
i also like to leave songs open without a solid "meaning".
that way a guy can sing it to his girlfriend...
doesnt "have" to be a dead girl.

let me explain more:

first and foremost its about me seeing her ghost in the cemetary.
(which i didnt...that would be cool tho.)

"youre fleeting like the sunset,
a moment that fades like the shortest day of winter"

(i used beautiful things that fade as an analogy to her appirition.)
(fading in and away)

you belong to the darkness,
a prison of velvet and stars

(shes a ghost...you only see ghosts at night)

ive only held you with my eyes
on moonless nights in july
your figure against the sky is so divine

(pretty much saying i want to hold her so bad, but shes just a vision...so i can only hold her in my sight)

so ill breathe deep every time i drive by your home

(breathing in so shell come in my body and be in my heart forever...and her "home" is her permanent underground home)

that river is just too deep
to let you drown in it all alone
ill keep you safe
deep inside of my empty heart
theres room for two and im saving it just for you.

(my heart is empty because its broken. by loving someone who died 150 years before i was born. and i always will. so there is always a space just for her)

theres a constant reminder tattooed in the back of my mind
your eyes are black as a cinder, you skin is white as the snow

(ghost are white...boring i guess)

i know its pointless as praying
but i just cant stop
dreaming about you
and one fine day it may come true

(saying i dont believe in god, and i know i cant be with a ghost...but i cant help it)

i guess you need to hear it
to see how it all flows together
the solid togetherness of it comes
with the hooks in the melody
and the lyrics are more poetic than a literal event
it lacks space and time
because death is endlessness
 
The point you're missing is that all those associations you listed mean nothing to anyone but you. Your idea of wanting to leave the song a little vague so that others can interprate it is OK, but in this case it doesn't work because there is nothing in those lyrics that they can identify with.

You don't have to be a "rhyming Nazi". YOu don't have to do anything with your music you don't want to do. Just remember that by writing in different ways you're making choices about how your songs will be received by others. These lyrics, as they are, would be a hard sell to anyone but your family and friends.


got mojo?
www.voodoovibe.com
 
Aaron Cheney said:
The point you're missing is that all those associations you listed mean nothing to anyone but you.

yup....that's the point man...
you don't have to be contrived or corny....or...god forbid...cheesy....to get a story told....

you just have to work at it....
and fit it into 3:30 :D
 
wow

this is kinda creepy
i thought music was supposed to be for yourself
not for someone else
i dont want money for that song
just sharing it with people who might like the symbolism
hear a different way of saying something...
thats all.

cryptic is my thing

most of the music i listen to is i guess.

i like to read deeper into something and pull out a hidden meaning... that makes it more special to me.

"the first star i see
may not be a star
cant do a thing but wait
so lets wait
for one more.
and the time, such clumsy time
in deciding if its time
im careful but not sure how it goes
you can lose yourself in your courage"

thats a verse from a band i like...
i could be about anything...but i know what it means to me
and i love it more than anything.
 
I see what your saying with the ambigous nature your reaching for. I think you could bridge the gap more between being loose and and having an understood meaning. The idea of "driving by your house" makes me think of someone driving by a house when shes in it. The mood is no quite set. I think it could still be ambiguous If you add some more hints as too the meaning. Maybe add a line expressing the death present in your theme. Something to hint that the girl is no longer physically present at the house. Maybe simply say "when I drive by your empty home" instead of just "when I drive by your home" That drastically changes the way the song is perceived for me. Cause it makes you think why is the house empty? Did she leave, die, what? And then if you allude to death later, it sends that empty line more towards the truth without directly stating it. And your still not using the tone where your narrating some story step for step to someone, but your still reflective the way someone would think to themsleves. Which is what the tone of your wrinting seems to me, kind of reflective and personal rather than explainitive. Its a good quality I think If you work on it more it makes it have an aire of mysteriousness.
 
Methinks you are a bit defensive ROBO. We are just giving you our opinions. And you know what?! All they are, are opinions, and you know what opinions are like. (Hint - everybody has one!).

When you put out a song for an opinion or review, you are going to get, if not the least common demoninator, something close, and that is not a bad thing. It is pretty much the pulse of the collective audience of music players and listeners.

And you are right, music can be for your own sake. Under that concept you can write about anything, in any way and however you like. BUT, don't expect others to understand your innermost feelings. If you have to explain yourself, which you have done twice now, all it means is, the songs speaks to no one but you. There is nothing wrong with that either.

Please understand we are being constructive, in the end the final decision, as always is yours.

Good Luck.
 
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